ON his first day in office, the next governor should send in the bulldozers to take down Fiterman Hall, the sickening relic of 9/11 that the state has inexcusably let stand, fester and cast a funereal pall on Downtown.
It would be a great way to show that he won’t be as lame as George (Big Pit) Pataki – and send a bold message that it won’t be go-nowhere-as-usual at Ground Zero next door, either.
And if Pataki’s successor doesn’t move aggressively, Fiterman Hall’s blackened and macabre hulk will almost surely still be there when he’s up for re-election four years later.
CUNY, which owns the site via its Borough of Manhattan Community College, couldn’t care if the ruin stands forever. And the federal environmental bureaucrats who’ve called the latest halt on Fiterman have grown so terrified of even the remotest risk, they’re making it impossible to take down anything larger than a mailbox Downtown.
Yes, demolition could spread contamination from 9/11 – that’s the feds’ theory, anyway. But an event as calamitous as 9/11 imposed the need to choose the lesser of irresponsible behaviors.
Had the Environmental Protection Agency bureaucrats and quick-to-sue activists been calling the shots right after 9/11, it wouldn’t have been possible to take down the World Trade Center wreckage. Work crews would not have lifted a shovel until the EPA was satisfied that not a toxic molecule would escape the smoldering ruins – and they’d stand today as a permanent monument to terrorist pluck.
If that sounds like an exaggeration, consider that the MTA can’t take down even a tiny, two-story building in the way of the Fulton Street Transit Center project – farther from Ground Zero than Fiterman Hall is – because the EPA’s afraid to OK anything.
The State Dormitory Authority, CUNY’s “agent” in the Fiterman fiasco, had already agreed to decontaminate the building before demolition, and planned to start this fall.
But now the authority has announced an indefinite delay – because it fears that the takedown proposals submitted by prospective contractors might not pass EPA muster.
In a move that typifies the state’s cowardice, it released the news on the Friday preceding the July 4 weekend – plainly hoping nobody would notice.
In any rational state or city, the Fiterman Hall eyesore would have been fixed or demolished promptly after 9/11. But CUNY, selfishly craving public money for a new building, refused to even consider having it cleaned and fixed. Yet the existing structure likely could have been saved.
Back in April 2004, I asked Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff whether it needed to be torn down. His answer reflected the view of many: “I don’t think so. They [CUNY] were given the [former office] building by the Fiterman family and they don’t think it’s the ideal building for their purposes.”
With $120 million in insurance and FEMA funds, CUNY had enough to repair the damaged hall – but it was $60 million-plus short of what it needed for a new one. Pataki, as spineless and unfocused as ever, let CUNY drag its feet – at the expense of the rest of the neighborhood.
The school finally buffaloed the LMDC into coughing up extra dough last year. A sign at the site shows what to expect if the project ever goes forward: a generic lemon of a building that would suit a White Plains office park.
But by the time CUNY had its money, of course, the old hall’s condition had only worsened – and the EPA bureaucrats had gone into their “never take anything that might resemble a risk” mode on 9/11-related demolition.
There’s some rationale for the endless delays in taking down the Deutsche Bank tower at 130 Liberty St.: It’s more than twice as tall as Fiterman, indisputably contaminated and full of human remains.
Not so for Fiterman Hall, a small building with a long shadow.
It haunts the doorstep of the new 7 World Trade Center, where Larry Silverstein is trying to rent space. He blames “governmental failure” for its continued presence. He’s right.
Will the next governor continue to fail Downtown? Eliot Spitzer (or John Faso or Tom Suozzi) can show that he won’t be George Pataki II – by showing some courage and acting fast on Fiterman Hall.
